Jeremy Maddux’s Reviews > Lords of Dyscrasia > Status Update

'Through hideous means over many years, I maintained the thick shell of the Gallwomb to inhibit the demon-litter from escaping. Likewise, I organized a host of guardians. Armored vagrants, once lost souls turned stout believers in Augury, now stalked the perimeter of the Fountain prepared to attack any creature that may hatch. All had been artisans. I recognized some as descendants of the mystery Picti cult.'

'He glared from deep, sunken sockets beneath a brooding brow, delivering a singular coldness reminiscent of my father’s stares. I yielded to these painful spells, allowing the image to rake the interior of my skull, slowly lacerating and peeling the fragile astral veins that cohered soul and bone.'

'With their images still registering in his mind he came to a limitless cavern. At the center, the Queen’s abdomen floated as an island. Her ballooned mass would dwarf the Gravenstyne Fortress, so large and awesome was the Queen. Bodies of dead elders floated about her, with iron crystals growing from their rusting metallic exoskeletons and the broken shells of a thousand eggs breaching the surface of the black sea.'

This is one of those bizarre medieval fantasy books that defy description and draw limited comparisons. The closest books I can compare this kind of fantasy to would be either Bleakwarrior or City of a Thousand Faces.

Covering her diseased half with her wings again, she locked sight with my eyes. “My body is not made of flesh, mister Dey. Rather, it consists of elements of the earth. Without the aid of one versed in manipulating the Land’s resources I will eventually transform into the Land itself, for I am infected with a disease that hardens my ichor, my blood, into stone.”

It was there, in that desolate trail, that several carrion birds began to peck at my still, defeated body. The scavengers were smaller than crows, with matte, ash-tinted hides and dull beaks. I had lain without food for three consecutive days so my vision was suspect. Yet even in my compromised state I understood these birds were unlike any I had ever seen.."

'They are actually larvae, as Doctor Grave often corrects me. Larvalwyrmen, he calls them. They get much larger as they age, as testified by a mummified example suspended in the Theater by five iron rods—it is nigh a fathom long. When he sees these embryonic larvae Grave becomes emotional, stroking their skins as if to comfort them. He would nurse them to maturity if he could..'